INDEPENDENT CANADIAN RADIO NEWS HOUR • Georgia Straight Best of Vancouver award: —“You’re guaranteed to hear things that will never crack the mainstream media”

Media Mornings: Tue, Jan 8

W2MEDIA.CA | On to today’s broadcast of Media Mornings on Vancouver Co-op Radio 100.5 fm, we rebroadcast our interview with award-winning author Derrick Jensen (“Deep Green Resistance,” “Endgame”), hear the latest on Idle No More, as well as a new Anonymous video.

Interview with Derrick Jensen (award-winning author of Deep Green Resistance, End Game and A Language Older than Words) on his New Years “Revolutions,” the limits of freedom, and links between trauma, illness and healing.

LISTEN TO DERRICK JENSEN’S FULL INTERVIEW (3 sections):

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

The hacker-activist group Anonymous releases a new video in support of the Idle No More Indigenous rights movement (watch video).

Media Mornings Latin America Report with Alfonso Osorio, on the health of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and current elections in Ecuador (watch Real News Network feature).

TOP STORY: IDLE NO MOREDespite Prime Minister Stephen Harper agreeing to meet with First Nation leaders this Friday there is still a lack of a trust that is prolonging protests (APTN). Meanwhile, APTN is also reporting that Spence and her partner are firing back at a leaked federal audit into their First Nation’s finances. Yesterday, Aboriginal Affairs released an audit done by Deloitte and Touche that found a missing paper trail for millions of dollars in funding flowing through Attawapiskat First Nation between 2005 and 2011. Spence dismissed the release as a distraction and attempt to discredit the Idle No More movement and hijack Friday’s meeting (APTN).

NORTH VANCOUVER: POLICE DOG ATTACKTHE B.C. INDEPENDENT Investigations Office is appealing for witnesses to come forward after a man was bitten, severely injured and hospitalized by a police dog in North Vancouver (Georgia Straight). Last year, the Straight reported that Police dogs are biting and hurting people more often than cops are injuring civilians with firearms, Tasers, batons, and old-fashioned hand blows combined (Georgia Straight).

NEW WESTMINSTER: TRANS MURDER PROTESTA New Westminster courtroom held a bail hearing yesterday for Charles Neel, who is charged with the murder of January Marie Lapuz. The 26-year-old transgender woman was stabbed to death in New Westminster on September 29. On Saturday about 75 people participated in a march from New Westminster City Hall to the courthouse, for a RALLY to uphold the rights of transgender people. Lapuz was active with Sher, a South Asian LGBT rights group (Georgia Straight).

BC: AUDITOR GENERALNew Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix blasted the B.C. Liberals Monday over their refusal to reappoint John Doyle as the province’s auditor general. Doyle has been a strong critic of the B.C. Liberal government since taking the job in 2007. Most recently he has been fighting the government in court for access to documents related to the waiver of $6 million in legal fees for Dave Basi and Bob Virk, two former government aides who pleaded guilty in the BC Rail case to breach of trust and accepting bribes (Vancouver Sun).

BC: CARE CARD PRIVACYPrivacy critics warn that new provincial health care cards being issued on February 15 represent a de facto form of what can easily be turned into a national identity card that can be used to track and control Canadians and that will make it easier for hackers to steal your private health information (Vancouver Sun).

ALBERTA: OIL SANDS POLLUTIONA new federally funded study on the tar sands has confirmed what a discredited industry-funded monitoring program could not: that pollution has now contaminated lakes as far as 90 km away from the massive mining project. ederal researchers studied the transport of just one of many toxic tar sands contaminants: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a diverse but deadly group of chemicals formed by the incomplete burning of fossil fuels. PAHs (and heavy metals) are well known components of Athabasca bitumen and some can cause cancers in humans. PAHS can also impede and affect fetal growth during the first trimester (Tyee).

CANADA: REFUGEE HEALTHNewly released documents show Citizenship and Immigration staff had to scramble to make the case for preserving some refugee health-care benefits that were on the chopping block earlier this year. Ministry bureaucrats were forced into a last-minute pitch to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney despite having raised concerns eight months earlier that the proposed policy wasn’t clear. The series of emails and memos released under Access to Information laws seem to contradict Kenney’s assertion that benefits for resettled refugees were never meant to be axed (CP).

CANADA: HAITI AID CUT OFFTwo years after Haiti’s devastating earthquake killed an estimated 316,000 people and made another million homeless — the second deadliest quake in history — Canada has reportedly frozen aid money to the country, prompting the country’s economic minister to declare that “Canada is very bad” (National Post).

SPAIN: HEALTHCARE PRIVATIZATIONThousands of Spanish health workers have marched through the streets of Madrid protesting the privatization of healthcare system (RT).

PAKISTAN: DEADLY US DRONE STRIKESAt least seven people have been killed in two suspected US drone attacks in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas, security officials say. Both attacks took place in the Mir Ali area of the North Waziristan tribal district in the early hours of Tuesday. In Khiderkhel, eight missiles were fired at a compound, killing at least four people. The latest drone attacks come as a retired US general and former head of ISAF’s operations in Afghanistan cautioned that the overuse of such tactics could jeopardise US foreign-policy goals. Retired General Stanley McChrystal said on Monday that drones had helped US troops but were hated around the world and that their overuse could harm American security in the long-term (Al Jazeera).

CHINA: CENSORSHIP PROTESTA quite unprecedented event has hit the Chinese southern city of Guangzhou: Hundreds of people gathered outside the office of a liberal newspaper after a leading New Year article calling for more press freedom was deleted from the daily’s website. In an open letter, the newspaper staff and interns called for the resignation of Tuo Zhen, a provincial propaganda official who is thought to be behind the article’s removal. The editorial piece calling for guaranteed constitutional rights was changed for one reflecting the general positions of the ruling Communist Party (RT). The last year saw a number of corruption scandals in China, from revelations of the vast wealth held by Premier Wen Jiabao to the downfall of Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai, whose wife was convicted of murdering a British businessman (Al Jazeera).

SUDAN/SOUTH SUDAN: PEACE NEGOTATIONS — The presidents of Sudan and South Sudan have agreed to abide by timelines to be drawn up to implement a raft of security, oil and border deals stalled for over three months. The leaders also agreed to set up a long-delayed demilitarised zone along their disputed border as soon as possible, a condition for the resumption of oil exports. South Sudan separated from Sudan in July 2011 under a peace agreement that ended a 1983-2005 civil war, but key issues remain unresolved.

MOZAMBIQUE: DOCTORS STRIKEDoctors in Mozambique have gone on strike over pay and working conditions demands, which they claim have not been met by the government. In mounting the strike yesterday, the doctors defied the government, which prohibits public-service workers from going on strike (Al Jazeera).

NORTHERN IRELAND: BRITISH FLAG CONFLICTPolice officers in Northern Ireland have fired plastic bullets and used water cannon after coming under attack from rioters, as protests continued for the fifth consecutive night in the capital Belfast. About 1,000 pro-British loyalists held a demonstration outside the City Hall on Monday as councillors held their first meeting since last month’s decision to limit the number of days it flies the British flag, or Union flag, above the City Hall. Northern Ireland’s chief police officer Matt Baggott earlier accused the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) of orchestrating the violence. Loyalists believe last month’s ruling to fly the flag on certain designated days was a concession too far to republicans who want Northern Ireland to be part of Republic of Ireland (Al Jazeera).